Land ho! Expedition 39 returns to Earth

Support personnel prepare to extract the crew from the Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft shortly after it landed with Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on May 14. Wakata, Tyurin and Mastracchio returned to Earth after more than six months onboard the International Space Station.

This article appeared in the May 2014 issue of RocketSTEM.You may download the entire issue as a PDF file here, or view the magazine online in a full-screen viewer here.